Off-road vehicles may turn out to be one of 2024’s top EV stories. The intrinsic advantages of EVs—silence, lack of local emissions, high torque—make them great choices for applications from construction to agriculture to mining. One off-road OEM exhibiting EVs at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show is Caterpillar. The iconic yellow-machine maker’s entire booth at… Read more…

Forget about range anxiety and charging—the real barrier to EV adoption is affordability. The market badly needs a better selection of lower-priced EVs, but they’re mighty slow in coming. Hyundai has several more affordable EVs in the pipeline—the new 2024 Kona Electric is expected to have a starting price under $33,000. The IONIQ 3 is… Read more…

Battery manufacturing technology provider 24M has unveiled a new battery separator tech called 24M Impervio, which the company says can make EV batteries substantially safer by inhibiting the growth of dendrites (rootlike metal growths that can build up on the anode surface, potentially causing a short-circuit that can lead to a fire). 24M’s Impervio technology… Read more…

As vehicle fleets electrify, they need help with their charging infrastructure, and an ecosystem of companies is developing to meet the demand. The range of offerings is complex and ever-changing—some companies offer one piece of the charging equation (hardware, installation, operations), while others offer turnkey packages that might include not only EVSE, software and services,… Read more…

LG Electronics has opened its first factory in the US for assembling EV charging stations. A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Fort Worth facility was attended by the city’s mayor and other officials. LG already has a huge distribution center for consumer electronics and home appliances in Fort Worth. The new 100,000-square-foot plant will have an… Read more…

Electronics giant Eaton has broken some new ground in the EV charger segment, and the company is showing two innovative new charging systems at CES. Eaton’s Sai Murahari, EVCI Product Manager, showed Charged its EV Smart Breaker line of chargers, which combine an EV charger with a smart circuit breaker. The integrated device fits into… Read more…

Toyota has announced the specifications of a new commercial van it will launch in Europe in 2024. The PROACE MAX van will come in six sizes with two wheelbase options, three lengths and three heights. These combinations offer cargo area volumes from 10 m³ to 17 m³, which can hold up to five Euro pallets…. Read more…

Polish bus manufacturer Solaris Bus & Coach will deliver 12 of its articulated Urbino 18 electric buses to the Warsaw Public Transport Authority during 2024 and 2025. The new buses will expand Warsaw’s existing fleet of 150 Solaris electric buses, one of the largest in Europe. They will be operated by Miejskie Zakłady Autobusowe, a… Read more…

Forum Mobility, a California-based freight electrification infrastructure provider, plans to build a heavy-duty truck charging depot adjacent to drayage carrier terminals at the Port of Long Beach. Supportive funding for the project will be provided by Honolulu-based nonprofit clean technology investor Elemental Excelerator. The fully staffed charging depot will offer 19 dual-port 360 kW chargers… Read more…

Battery manufacturer LG Energy Solution and Impact Clean Power Technology (ICPT), a public transportation battery system supplier, have signed a supply agreement for nickel cobalt manganese (NCM) lithium-ion battery modules. Under the three-year battery supply agreement, LG Energy Solution will supply approximately 200,000 battery modules from its Wroclaw plant in Poland to ICPT’s GigafactoryX in… Read more…

From job sites to farms to mines, off-road vehicles are steadily electrifying. Bobcat, an American manufacturer of compact farm and construction equipment, has introduced what it calls the world’s first all-electric skid steer loader, a follow-up to the electric track loader Bobcat introduced two years ago (a skid steer, as opposed to a tracked vehicle,… Read more…

Wireless EV charging specialist InductEV (formerly Momentum Dynamics) has formed a partnership with contract manufacturing and assembly company Detroit Manufacturing Systems (DMS). InductEV says taking advantage of DMS’s manufacturing and supply chain expertise will allow it to more quickly scale production to meet customer demand. Under the terms of the agreement, DMS will manufacture InductEV’s… Read more…

Altair, a computational science and AI company, has received funding from the UK government through the Faraday Battery Challenge in collaboration with automotive manufacturer JLR and battery manufacturer Danecca.  The three companies have developed a consortium to develop a new design process for EVs.  The new approach will develop vehicle prototypes using Altair technology. The… Read more…

Blue Current, a solid-state battery manufacturer, has announced technical advances, partner engagements and funding. Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT), Piedmont Capital and Umicore invested in Blue Current in 2023. The company is using this additional funding to finish its 22,000-square-foot pilot manufacturing facility at its Hayward, California headquarters. The pilot is designed to demonstrate that the… Read more…

In recent A-sample tests at the laboratories of PowerCo, the Volkswagen Group’s battery company, a solid-state battery from QuantumScape achieved more than 1,000 charging cycles while retaining more than 95 percent capacity. This translates to a potential battery life of 500,000 km with no significant loss of vehicle range. Solid-state battery technology promises longer ranges,… Read more…

Southern California-based EV maker Mullen Automotive has received certification from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) for its Mullen ONE Class 1 EV cargo van, which has already been certified by the EPA. The company can now sell the vehicle in every state in the US, including the states that currently follow CARB regulations for… Read more…

The US and Canada have created a Rail Decarbonization Task Force to explore ways to reduce emissions from the rail sector. According to a joint statement from the US DOT and the Canadian Transport Ministry, “The decarbonization of the rail sector is a crucial component of our global efforts to reduce emissions and meet the… Read more…

NETZSCH, a developer of positive displacement pumps, has demonstrated its fluid pumping solutions for lithium battery manufacturing. NETZSCH’s NEMO progressive cavity pumps are positive displacement pumps that have a rotating rotor and stationary stator. Rotors are round-threaded screws with one side hinged or elastically attached. The output axial position oscillates. Elastic hollow stators have the… Read more…

The Plight of the Drivewayless—those poor souls who live in urban locales where they can’t charge their EVs at home—has emerged as a major drag on the speed of EV adoption. Solutions from the clever to the silly have been proposed, but if we look at dense cities where adoption is already well advanced, we’re… Read more…

Northvolt has introduced a sodium-ion battery for energy storage systems. The cell has been validated for specific energy exceeding 160 Wh/kg at Northvolt Labs in Västerås, Sweden. Northvolt developed the sodium-ion technology for the battery together with research partner Altris. The battery uses abundant iron and sodium and is safer, cheaper and more sustainable than… Read more…